The Four Temperaments
by Sealink
Summary: PWP, Smut, Movieverse, rated for sexual situations. A reimagining of the days leading up to the Fifth of November.
1. Melancholic

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _My first V For Vendetta fic, published to great success in Vigilante, the original V for Vendetta fanfic archive. _

_The title comes from a philosophical idea that the personalities of people could be tied to the 'humours' of the body. People who possessed such personality qualities were said to have an excess of the humour to which the personality was tied, and sometimes strange medical procedures would be undertaken to liberate the individual from the humours that affected their moods. _

_Melancholic, meaning "black bile", means a person was prone to depressed moods and tended to have a black outlook on life. _

**xXx**

The Shadow Gallery stood long and still, her paintings strangely empty of life, the figures with rouged cheeks and bared breasts offering no comfort to him. Even the jukebox, the crooners and sirens could not quiet his soul. The first and now the second of November had come and gone, and he felt his death drawing ever nearer. One expects an air of melancholy when one is contemplating less than seventy-two hours until death, but melancholy was not the word. V's mind swam in a bottomless abyss.

Though he had exacted a promise from her, she had not come; her step had not darkened (or was it lightened?) his door since those days when he had kept her imprisoned, shaved and naked of femininity, though he could not blame her. It had been the only way, hadn't it? Of course it had, he told himself. Of course it had. After all, she had emerged from the ordeal a different person, indestructible. Oh, how he had shaken her, but she had held out, fighting him until the last. And when it was 'over', when he had freed her, she had left him.

He held his head in his hands, his leather gloves sliding over his mask. Of course she would, he knew. How could he expect a young, beautiful woman to stay here in his pit of vengeance? How could he expect a young, beautiful woman to love this… creature behind his mask? How, indeed.

So he stood up from his chair, putting his sword away and gave the armor back his head. He had killed his opponent three times in as many days, dancing with the sword, both dreaming of his revenge, and ignoring the fact she wasn't there. It had rained today, though the sounds had not reached his ears. He could smell the moisture in the earth, feel the damp in his bones, and it reminded him again of her absence. _God is in the rain_. He walked to Valerie's corner of the gallery. Her poster smiled coyly at him, her face, ageless and beautiful. He both loved and despised her. Loved her for her beauty, her strength, and despised her for leaving him.

V remembered when she slid the scroll into his cell, that rat-hole their small but concrete defiance. He had read it hungrily, eager for human contact in that pit. How is it that she could remember her life and he could not? He envied her the roses, the Scarlet Carsons whose smell he could not fabricate in his mind, although he was sure they would have smelled sweet. When he was bone-weary from their tests and their needles, the heady scent of his imagined roses became his escape. One day, he had vowed, such roses, such sweet scents would compliment the smell of blood and steel when he killed the people who did this to him.

And so he had. He had planned for years, stealing what he needed, lifting what he wanted. The things of beauty he 'acquired' from the Objectionable Material vaults surrounded him. He lived as he wanted, only his books and the jukebox for company.

And then she came, walking into his life with a can of mace. "Are you like a crazy person?" she asked him. Oh, if only she knew!

But she would not. She had not come, and he knew she would not. He was alone, as he was in the beginning, but it was not the same.


	2. Phlegmatic

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _Phlegmatic, relating to "phlegm", means that the person has a calm disposition._

**xXx**

V heard the door scrape, and his heart skipped a beat. He stood quickly, straightening his wig from where it had fallen out of place. _Look natural_, he thought, although he could not ignore the idea as being farcical- a burned experiment dressed in black, with a Guy Fawkes mask and wig, looking natural.

There she was, her hair still shorn close, though the time since her imprisonment had been months. It was a hallmark of the new Evey, the woman who had emerged from the cell in his home unbroken, more whole than she'd ever been. He'd loved his little bird before he'd caught her in a cage, but now, now she was glorious. Her dewy brown eyes, still framed with lush lashes—her body, once defamed in the raiment of the whore, now so much more attractive in the garb of the revolutionary. V smiled softly at Evey, though the mask he wore made a mockery of it.

"I wasn't sure you would come back," he started. The admission was raw, baring him to his core, but it was Truth, and he could not escape it, no matter how vulnerable it left him.

"I told you I would," she replied, smiling matter-of-factly.

"So you did."

"Were you listening to anything in particular?"

"The jukebox is a delightful chest of emotions, but Russian composers are more appropriate now, don't you think?" He turned to a phonograph, the record on it having sat there for the past week as V wrestled with Evey's absence. V started the table and placed the needle on the edge of the disc. Sweeping brass strains issued out of the horn, followed by the soft, plaintive song of a violin.

"That's beautiful," Evey breathed, afraid to speak during the music.

"Scheherazade," V said. "She has comforted me with her stories for countless nights. I never tire of her."

"Who is she?"

"An Arabian queen who gentled a bloodthirsty king with stories. He killed a virgin a day until she became his companion and her stories stayed his hand."

"That's cruel."

"Killing virgins?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps." He felt his heart quicken, and suddenly the music seemed out of place. He picked the needle up, not noticing her wince at the noise.

"Evey, would you dance with me?"

"There's no music," she said with a smile.

"Play something for me."

"Anything I want?" She sounded incredulous.

"Anything, Evey."

She flipped through the catalog, and V got tenser with each clack of the CDs going past. He was keenly aware of the power of music; what would she choose? How would she respond to him?

When he heard the opening progressions, his throat closed and his chest ached. _Hold me close and hold me fast. _"La vie en rose," he said.

Evey smiled, charming beyond belief. He held up his hands for a dance, beckoning her over. She stepped into the circle of his arms, and they closed around her. Edith Piaf sang on, w_hen you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where roses bloom_. "Evey, you are a master of irony," he murmured, and she leaned in, the space between them taken up by her body.

"How do you mean?"

She couldn't know him, couldn't realize the kind of control that kept him in check, kept that madness that boiled inside him at a low simmer. He couldn't answer.

"I don't think it's ironic," she said, leaning her head against him as the song ended and they continued dancing, swaying together. "I have to thank you for it. You taught me to see things in a different light. To not be afraid of who I was, or of who I was becoming."

"Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome, Evey?" His voice was wry.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"When the captors become victims, the victims become accomplices." He paused. "You said once that you would not help me kill anyone. Do you feel differently?"

"I don't know. It's not a choice I've had to make."

Evey could feel his body warmth even through his thickly padded clothes. He was human, he was alive, and with him so close, she could hardly think of death.

"V," she started, sliding her palms up over his chest and on his shoulders. "Don't talk about death. You've done a lot of killing since I met you. Now all of England is holding its breath, waiting for you to kill again. And they're sure you're a monster, just as I was." Her hands slid up his neck, and he stiffened; she was too close to his mask, too close to casting it aside and revealing his face.

"But you're not a monster, V. When I was in a prison I couldn't see, you showed me the bars." She touched the lips of his mask with her fingertips, that perpetual grin, felt his hot breath. She swallowed, wetting her lips that were suddenly dry. "Aren't you in a prison? Isn't this mask… a prison?" She thumbed the edge of the mask.


	3. Choleric

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _Choleric, linked with "bile", means a person is predisposed toward anger and furious outbursts. This is the least developed of V's traits (in my not-so-humble opinion), at least as he displays them toward Evey._

**xXx **

He exploded away from her, breaking their embrace with all the violence of a bomb.

"V—"

"No, that's quite enough, Evey." He took a deep breath; she watched his shoulders rise and fall with it. "What is behind this mask deserves imprisonment."

"Oh come off it, V!" Evey threw her arm wide, gesturing to all of his possessions, to him. "When are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself? When are you going to take responsibility for what you are? Everyone else has to take responsibility, but you don't?"

"I have taken responsibility for my actions and I'm prepared for the consequences. I knew when I began to walk this path nearly twenty years ago that it would end in my eventual death."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about me."

"You?" Anger surged in him as he looked at her. Had he not tried to allow her a measure of self-governance? Had he not tried to offer her a way to assist him? And when she had thrown them back in his face, had he not let her be, regardless of the threat she presented? And it was still all about her?

"Yes, me. I know that there is more to you than the mask."

She looked at him, his knives absent from his person, knowing that unarmed as he was, he was dangerous, and yet, her fear was gone, washed away with the rain so many weeks ago. When she spoke again, her anger was gone, replaced with a calm he envied.

"You released me from my prison, now I will release you from yours, V."

"And if I do not want to be released?" The silky threat of violence lay behind that mask, but—Heaven help him!—she only smiled.

"You didn't offer me a choice, V."

She shrugged off her coat, heaping it on the floor. V's mask, that awesome fortress, gave nothing away. Evey slipped off her boots, and then reached to the collar of her shirt, undoing the first, second, third buttons.

"Evey," he said tightly. "Don't make choices you'll regret. Don't do this."

"Are you begging on your behalf or mine, V?" Her tone was playful, but her eyes continued to look through the holes in his mask, look though his eyes and into the core of him.

"That was hardly begging. I'm simply imploring you to be aware of your decisions."

The fourth button popped free. He swallowed hard; strange that a woman could bring his defenses down with relative ease, where the British government had tried so hard and failed. The fifth button. She eased her shirt off her shoulders, and her skin warmed in the Gallery's lighting. He'd seen her breasts before, during her confinement in his cells, but this was different. She was revealing herself to him, her face as open as she'd ever been during any of their long discussions, during any of her torture (oh, the irony!)

Honesty was painted on her face, all over her exposed skin. God help him, he gravitated toward her as she pulled the shirt off her arms. The clean smell of soap, of the damp outdoors, hit his nose. She kept him in her thrall, her eyes plumbing the darkness of the slits in the mask. Evey reached for the top button of her trousers.

"Evey, please." His voice had lost none of its gravity, though he was strained to the breaking point. She smiled sweetly at him, stepping closer and embracing his stiffened arms. "V, please," she parroted back at him.

"You don't know what you're asking for," he ground out, his normal theatricality crushed beneath the boot of desire. "You won't like what you get."

"I'm not asking for a perfect romance. I'm asking for _you_. I want the man behind the mask. It was no ideal that picked me up from the floor of BTV. It was no ideal that asked me to dance with him. Can't you understand, V?" she asked. Her face looked at him, pleading and questioning at the same time. "Can't you understand that I need you?"

He groaned, his breath catching. She would say something like that, ask _that_ of him; didn't she realize that dying was difficult enough to do without leaving someone behind?

"I am not a man, Evey. I _am_ a monster, and this is a monster's body. A monster's body," he said, his gloved hands slid up her arms and then around her shoulders, clamping on with a painful grip. "Not mine."

"V, that's not good enough." Her hand closed over his, and she picked it up, holding his by the wrist. His claw-like grip released her shoulder reluctantly. She tugged at the fingers of his gloves, but his curled his fingers into a fist. "There's no point in resisting. I've seen these hands without their gloves." A pause, that impenetrable mask leering at her, and then his hand relaxed. She removed the glove and it dropped to the floor, the leather hitting the stone with a loud slap.

V's hand was mottled and roped with the scars of fire, the color of meat. "Are you satisfied—"he began, but his words stopped as she dropped her cheek to the back of his hand, where the unnatural shine of scar tissue formed a smooth plane. The sneer that had curled his natural lips faded, replaced by a silent moan of shock. And then her lips, her breath on his own skin, and he could stand it no longer.

He crushed her to him, hearing her gasp, before flinging her away from him. She landed on the floor, and he fought within himself, trying wildly to regain control, his breathing ragged. Evey was slow to get up, slow to face him, and when she did, she looked at him without judgment, without reproach.


	4. Sanguine

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **_Sanguine refers to blood, and someone with a sanguine personality is said to experience elation, happiness or joy with an almost frivolous frequency. _

_This is also the part with the smut, so make sure you're of legal age to read/view such materials in your county/province/country. You are, of course, responsible for your own activities. _

**xXx**

He had hoped she would be angry, that she would turn against him, her eyes flashing with indignation, that same rebellious spirit he'd seen in her as her guard, her interrogator. But there was no anger, no fury. Her eyes were still soft, still accepting, and even desirous. His anger evaporated, and he sighed heavily. She was still looking at him, and he still did not know how to respond to her. In the years since the fire, there had been no one. He had never sought out prostitutes, never sought out companionship, sharpening his skills, his knives and his focus.

Unable to accept her, unable to leave her, V turned away. His mind whirred through all the possible scenarios, and none of them ended to his liking. Many of them, too many of them, ended in his bed, and it was a place that had never known lust before Evey. He thought that part of him had died out a long time ago. And yet, he couldn't rinse her away, couldn't get her willing body out of his head.

His inner turmoil served Evey well, and she saw her opportunity. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against his back, a small smile teasing her lips as she felt his sharp inhale. "V," she started, her voice lowered, "please. Let me love you. Just for tonight." He was still, his breathing shallow, and she pushed her luck. "No strings, no expectations. Just us."

"Evey," he moaned, his mouth dry. "You are an evil woman. If I had known it would come to this, I would have left you on the floor of that television station. I would have left you…"

Her cheek touched his back, smoothing over the brocade. "But you didn't."

"No. I didn't. And now I am going to pay for it."

He turned, that mask still grinning, offering no clue to the state of the man underneath it. "To think that you would turn seductress, after all I've put you through," he muttered.

"Does that mean you accept?"

"Yes, Evey. I accept." And he picked her up effortlessly, his forearm under her knees, carrying her into the bedroom. Her arms fell around his neck, and his lips quirked; for only a few seconds, he had acknowledged his love, his desire for her, but already her embrace, the weight of her in his arms, seemed so natural.

The sheets were rumpled from his restless sleep the night before, speaking to his state-of-mind before her return. He set her down on the bed, and she promptly stood.

"Is something wrong?" A small doubt crept into his voice, and he dearly hoped that she had not reconsidered.

She did not answer, but reached for his collar, finding that the archaic costume was simpler than it looked. A simple hook-and-eye closure was time-consuming to remove, but he stood still, letting her peel away his protective outer layers. A thin black shell rested underneath, but she would deal with that later. Evey eased the tunic off his shoulders, pulling off his other glove and casting it aside.

V's eyes were closed, and he trusted her. The air hit his body, cold after the padding of the tunic, but he relished the change in sensation. The fabric, he knew, did not hide his deformities. But there she was, holding her warmth against him! His head felt light, and he reached up with one hand, curling his arm around her shoulder, pressing her to him. Her smell, her body; she was in his senses and overloading his brain. His control was slipping.

Her hands moved to his waist, sliding under the hem of the shell, and she followed the ropes and mottled keloids on his flesh, tracing the way his skin had melted and dripped down his chest, her touch tender, not hesitant. She pulled the thin weave up, over his shoulders, freeing his arms of it and leaving it around his neck, the sleeves trailing down his back. His body was significantly more scarred on its left side, and some parts of him were even smooth pale skin, untouched by fire. He trembled, another human's touch on his skin awakening a dormant nerve between his legs, and his control slipped further.

And then, her lips were there on the planes of his muscles, her soft mouth murmuring entreaties against him. V groaned, his head falling back, the fringes of his wig falling away from the top of his mask, and he shivered again as it brushed his neck. It was becoming an increasing nuisance. He nearly flung it away from him, lifted his hand to do so, but stopped. His control slipped further.

She stopped touching him, her hands gone, and he opened his eyes, finding her nearly nude, and then completely so, leaving her panties in a heap on the floor. He could still see where his hand had struck her, though there were no marks; it was his own mind that damned him, and he whispered his apologies behind the mask, wondering how it was that God did not strike him dead for daring to use brute force against her. The gentle curves of her hip, the swell of her breasts, the shadowed triangle at the apex of her thighs; she enchanted him and his control slipped further.

Spurred at last to take part in his own seduction, he sat, pulling off his boots, and she leaned against him, her hand creeping underneath his arms, stroking his bare skin, and then worming their way under the waistband of his trousers. V left his boots haphazardly askew, so unlike their normal order, and fell back on the bed. His chest rose and fell rapidly, the scars giving and taking up slack. Evey sat up, climbing off the bed, and she lifted each foot, tugging off a sock and tossing them somewhere over her shoulder. She leaned over him, fiddling with the clasp of his pants and finally undoing it, her fingers clutching at the fabric and tugging them off over his hips. She made equally quick work of his undergarments, and he lifted his hips willingly to let them go free. All his will was bent on maintaining what shreds of control he had left.

It was during this struggle that he felt the shock of her breasts sliding up his legs, over his chest, her breathing as heavy as his own, and he lost his fight. Why fight her, why keep his control, when he had already revealed so much? Why continue to hide? V realized then that she had been right; his elaborate costume, which he had always told himself was a part of the illusion of Guy Fawkes, was little more than a cage of his own making. He lifted his hand up, his fingers steady, and pushed the shell, mask and wig over his head, away from himself, leaving the ideal empty on the corner of the bed.

He was so vulnerable, so exposed, but Evey slid up over him, covering him with her body, shielding him from the air. Her lips caught at his, her hands brushing his cheeks, pulling him into her kiss. V sat up, intoxicated and he marveled again at her. "Evey," he murmured huskily. She did not smile as he had expected; her lips were parted, her eyes half-lidded with longing. She buried her face in his neck, nipping at him with small kisses and writhing against him. His hands skimmed her back, and he pulled her away from him, laying her head down on the pillow and hovering over her.

Evey sighed when his mouth closed over the tip of her breast. Her weak voice surfaced, pleading for more, for him. It thrilled V to the core, and his body responded fully, blood rushing to his groin and engorging his length. Though he had not been with a woman, with anyone, in the many years since his own incarceration, his body had not forgotten the feeling of pleasure.

V slid his hand lazily down her abdomen, feeling goose bumps rise on her skin as his fingers sought and parted her labia. She stiffened, her teeth clenched, and her hand sought his shoulder, fingers curled into hooks. Massaging further, his fingers pressing and fondling elicited more cries, more delicious moans from her, until she finally broke, her voice begging him for more, or no more, which ever, but pick one, please, because she couldn't continue like this or she might die. He heard all of this in her simple gasps, her whimpers closed off with her strain both toward and away from orgasm.

He granted her the second one, withdrawing his fingers, though he stroked her mound. Her eyes met his, intense and direct, and he kissed her again, crushing her lips under his. She yielded willingly, pulling him on top of her. He hesitated for a moment; there was no protection for either of them. He looked at her, frozen in indecision.

"V, I need you," she pleaded. At his continued hesitation, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him nearer. She reached up, pulling him down until she could kiss him again.

"Evey, I don't have…" He was tortured, unable to continue, unable to go back. She was quiet, and then whispered in his ear. "Don't stop. I don't care whether or not we have that, just don't stop."

"You are sure?" V picked up her knees, easing them apart, sliding his hands to her hips.

"Yes."

Her words were his salvation; he leaned against her. His invasion was resisted at first, but then he sank into her, gasping at the moist warmth, pressing forward until he could go no further. Her eyes were closed, but her hissed breath, her hands tightening around his upper arm, his name under her breath—they spoke volumes. Her eyes fluttered open and she watched him when he began to move, looking down at where their bodies joined, and then back up at him.

V's coherence was failing, but he saw her eyes move, caught them with his own, and he knew. She was not imagining some other man's face over his, some other body in her arms. He felt her body welcome him, her legs tightening around him, and her upturned face lift toward his. She constantly returned her gaze to his face to make sure it was really him, this was really happening. And then she arched against him, bucking her hips up against his quickening thrusts.

He fell upon her, supporting himself on his elbows, his muscles aching with tension. "Evey," he breathed, closing his mouth over her kiss-swollen lips, as his pace quickened. Her rising voice was cut off by their kiss, until at last she came up for air and he buried his face in her neck. Evey's moans grew to shrill cries, and she clutched at him, writhing against him, screaming his name as her pleasure reached its pinnacle. Only as she came down, only as the fever of her orgasm began to recede, did he allow himself his release. His hips jerked wildly as he lost himself in her.

The silence pressed in on them, the only noise their gasping for air. V's hips twitched, and Evey gasped. He smiled, letting a kiss fall on her forehead, before easing himself out of her and rolling to one side. A quick motion freed the bedclothes, and V gathered them up, covering their still damp bodies against the chill. He pillowed his head on her breast, and Evey stroked his neck, his shoulders as he succumbed to sleep.

Evey woke and found V missing, her arm half-asleep from the weight of his head. All trace of the previous night had been erased; boots, tunic, mask, wig, all gone. She stretched, finding herself much refreshed. She tugged her panties on quickly and wandered out into the main room in search of V.

He was there, reading, in his full costume. His mask and wig were back in place, as if they had never been removed. She smiled gently at him, folding her arms over her bare breasts. He stood suddenly. "I… laundered your clothes. You didn't have any others here."

She smiled and shrugged.

"Are you alright?"

His voice was back to its measured self. Gone was the impassioned man of the night before, gone were his vulnerabilities, ensconced behind that mask. She smiled weakly.  
"I'm fine."

"Evey, about last night…"

"It—_you_ were wonderful, V."

He stopped, brought up short by her admission. She wandered over to him, her arms falling away from her breasts, and she kissed the top of his head. "Thank you, V. For everything."

This was it. This was her goodbye, her parting words. V smiled sadly under his mask. "Of course, Evey. Of course."


End file.
